Where Germans Drive Fastest

The German autobahn system includes stretches where motorists are allowed to drive as fast as they want. These speed-unrestricted stretches do have an advisory speed limit of 130 kilometres per hour (81 mph) but going faster isn't illegal (however if a driver has an accident while driving at over 130 kph they may face increased liability).

Zeit has used data from TomTom to workout how fast Germans drive on average on each stretch of the autobahn. An interactive map on Where Germany is Racing shows the average speed of all drivers across the autobahn network and the average speed driven by the fastest 10% of drivers. Around 70% of the autobahn has no speed limit. The other 30% has different speed limits depending on certain factors (such as the level of urbanization, the road condition and road safety). Using TomTom's data Zeit discovered that the lower the speed limit the more drivers tend to ignore it.

On the sections which have an advisory speed limit (130 kph) then the average speed is 122 kph (75.8 mph). Only 30% of drivers drive faster than 130 kph on the speed unrestricted sections of the autobahn. Only 12% drive faster than 150 kph (93.2 mph).

Zeit's online map doesn't allow you to filter the sections of autobahn shown by the average speed of all drivers or the average speed of the fastest 10% of drivers. However towards the end of the article Zeit has published a static map which shows the sections of the autobahn network where the fastest 10% of drivers tend to drive on average at over 180 kmh (112 mph) or more.